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Maryland Parents Investigated For Neglect After Letting Their Kids Walk Home From School Alone
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
It’s one thing for an 80 year old to nostalgically lament that things aren’t as they used to be. The problem is, I’m only 36 years old and this country already barely resembles the place I grew up in.
I’ve mentioned in the past how I used to ride the New York City public bus to and from school by myself starting when I was around 9 or 10 years old. Many of my peers started taking the then dreaded subway by themselves around the same time. Bear in mind, this was NYC in the 1980’s, a far different place than the Disneyland for Wall Street it has become since. I can’t recall a single child abduction happening to anyone at my school, but what I can remember was a teacher being fired for molesting young boys. Makes you wonder about where the real danger lurks, doesn’t it?
This transformation into a nanny-state, snitching culture has severe negative long-term repercussions for U.S. society, as well as the economy, if the trend isn’t reversed. I have written about this dangerous change many times in the past, and links to prior articles will be attached at the end of this post.
First, let’s take a look at the ridiculous circumstances now faced by these Maryland parents for simply allowing their children a rite of passage that kids from time immemorial have enjoyed. From the Washington Post:
It was a one-mile walk home from a Silver Spring park on Georgia Avenue on a Saturday afternoon. But what the parents saw as a moment of independence for their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, they say authorities viewed much differently.
Danielle and Alexander Meitiv say they are being investigated for neglect for the Dec. 20 trek — in a case they say reflects a clash of ideas about how safe the world is and whether parents are free to make their own choices about raising their children.
The Meitivs say they believe in “free-range” parenting, a movement that has been a counterpoint to the hyper-vigilance of “helicopter” parenting, with the idea that children learn self-reliance by being allowed to progressively test limits, make choices and venture out in the world.
The fact that parents who want to allow their children to engage in normal behavior have to resort to terms like “free-range” parenting, which makes you think of livestock, tells you all you need to know.
“The world is actually even safer than when I was a child, and I just want to give them the same freedom and independence that I had — basically an old-fashioned childhood,” she said. “I think it’s absolutely critical for their development — to learn responsibility, to experience the world, to gain confidence and competency.”
On Dec. 20, Alexander agreed to let the children, Rafi and Dvora, walk from Woodside Park to their home, a mile south, in an area the family says the children know well.
The children made it about halfway
Police picked up the children near the Discovery building, the family said, after someone reported seeing them.
The Meitivs say their son told police that he and his sister were not doing anything illegal and are allowed to walk. Usually, their mother said, the children carry a laminated card with parent contact information that says: “I am not lost. I am a free-range kid.” The kids didn’t have the card that day.
Can you believe that such a card is even necessary? What planet am I living on.
She added: “Abductions are extremely rare. Car accidents are not. The number one cause of death for children of their age is a car accident.”
Danielle is a climate-science consultant, and Alexander is a physicist at the National Institutes of Health.
Alexander said he had a tense time with police on Dec. 20 when officers returned his children, asked for his identification and told him about the dangers of the world.
The more lasting issue has been with Montgomery County Child Protective Services, he said, which showed up a couple of hours after the police left.
Mary Anderson, a spokeswoman for CPS, said she could not comment on cases but that neglect investigations typically focus on questions of whether there has been a failure to provide proper care and supervision.
The Meitivs say that on Dec. 20, a CPS worker required Alexander to sign a safety plan pledging he would not leave his children unsupervised until the following Monday, when CPS would follow up. At first he refused, saying he needed to talk to a lawyer, his wife said, but changed his mind when he was told his children would be removed if he did not comply.
Following the holidays, the family said, CPS called again, saying the agency needed to inquire further and visit the family’s home. Danielle said she resisted.
“It seemed such a huge violation of privacy to examine my house because my kids were walking home,” she said.
This week, a CPS social worker showed up at her door, she said. She did not let him in. She said she was stunned to later learn from the principal that her children were interviewed at school.
Think about how terrifying this is for a second. Two clearly loving, intelligent and thoughtful parents where threatened with the removal of their children for allowing them to do something that should be seen as completely normal by all but the most scared, pathetic and uncourageous amongst us. To make matters worse, the whole thing started because a neighbor ratted them out.
This is not what freedom looks like.
For related articles, see:
A Winter Wonderland of Fear – Cities Across the U.S. Move to Ban Unregulated Sledding
The “Nanny States of America” – Mother Arrested for Allowing 7-Year-Old Son Walk to Park Alone
Connecticut Man Arrested for “Passive Aggressive” Behavior to a Watermelon
»
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Everyone forgets what is at issue here:
the "safety" of kids going to and coming home from school.
Let your kids walk to school at 12 noon on Sunday: they walk; get to school; doors locked; and walk home - no one gives a damn.
Repeat the process during the summer when the schools are closed - same result.
The school and the school board does not want to be sued for anything bad happening to a kid going to or coming from school when school is in session.
Any other time, those authorities do not give a rat's ass what happens to your kid. It is that simple.
Everyone forgets what is at issue here: the "safety" of kids going to and coming home from school...
Actually, December 20 was a Saturday, school had nothing to do with this incident. The issue here is the continuing unrelenting attack on traditional families by an ever more intrusive government and their agents.
I had an interesting conversation with my adult children discussing the size of older homes. Used to be bedrooms were for sleeping, kitchens were for cooking, dining rooms were for eating and the front and backdoors were for leaving in order to "go outside and play". "Rumpus rooms" were a rarity and we thought of having to stay inside while it was light as punishment or due to illness. It all started to change when Pong was introduced.
jmobservation.
The nanny state requires parents to have a nanny?
"independence for their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter"
10 years old is one thing. My brother and I both walked home from school alone or with friends at that age. But 6? A 6 year old supervised for a 1 mile walk by just a 10 year old? Doesn't strike me as the best parenting.
You, obviously never had an ounce of independence when you were growing up.
That was normal.
"Jim! Watch your younger brother when you walk home from school. You are the older one, you are responsible for him."
Yes, maám.
That is because you are a fucktard.
Things were definitely better when I had to walk 10 miles through a snowstorm to get to school.
Pfft. I bet you even had shoes!
A lot of blame goes to paranoid parents who'd keep their kids in the womb until they're 21. You had a group of parents here having a fit over kids in school having a bunch of Afghan refugees 3000 miles away as pen pals..... they might send anthrax or something. Biggest scaredy cat kids you've ever seen - afraid of EVERYTHING because their parents are afraid of everythign. Half of them moved up here to the burbs from Manhattan because NYC was too scary to raise kids for them (too ecxpensive as well).
Hell, when we were kids we had ongoing wargames that ranged over miles - including the woods and swamps down the street. Back in the day Mattel made 50 cal machine guns along with German helmets and toy lugers too..... Funny. everyone want to be the Nazis - even the Jewish kids. Political incorrectness run amok but nobody got upset. Everyone shot off fireworks on the 4th of July - not the wussy ones you have today but the big ones. When we were at Boy Scout Camp our patrol used to leave camp every day, go hiking over to the 'ore pit' - a drop off to bottomless water filled hole - or hiking whereever. Getting old glass insulators off an abandon rail line- climbing the poles - was another pasttime. We all were proficient with .22's and pretty good shooting clays. MOst kids built 'playhouses' or tree houses out of discarded scrap lumber - we even made a zip line from our tree house with soem old cable and pulleys.... Now zoning would cite you for building an 'illegal structure' without a permit. I used to ride my bike to a hobby shop a few miles away in a really crappy neighborhood - at 12. Never had a problem. But then most of us had both parents working - because our parents NEEDED the extra income (most husbands weren't too happy about it but reality didn't give them a choice). I knew how to cook, do laundry and otherwise live without much supervision.
God forbid you have independent self-sufficient kids who can think for themselves.
"with the idea that children learn self-reliance by being allowed to progressively test limits, make choices and venture out in the world"
That's not an idea....that's a fact.
I don't understand where these stories are coming from. I have 2 kids in the Minneapolis Public Schools; a 17 year-old Junior and a 14 year-old Freshman. The kids walked to and from elementary school (about 1/2 mile) every day once the older kid (the boy) was in 3rd grade. That is expected here. They have a 1-mile radius for the elementary years where they don't provide busing and they expect the kids to walk. The teachers sort the kids at the end of every day, and take the bus-riders out one side of the school and have an exit for the walkers on the other side of the building, where they also keep an eye on the kids whose parents pick them up (and they keep an eye on the parents so traffic on the street doesn't get too screwed up with double-parking, etc.).
Our kids' Middle School was exactly 4 miles from our house. After the second day of riding the bus for 6th grade, our son decided to ride his bike because there was so much horseplay etc. on the bus. He rode his bike 4 miles each way every darn day, morning and evening, all three years of Middle School. On a couple days where it was way below zero F. we drove him, but otherwise, he rode his bike every day. The teachers thought it was great and praised him for it. They did ask me how much preparation we had done before letting him try it. We had driven the route, and he did a dry-run on a Saturday so he knew where he was going. We got him a cell phone to keep in his backpack, a helmet, lights, a decent bike in good repair, etc.
Now the kids are both in High School, and that's only 2 miles from our house. The boy still rides every day, but get this: The school district is trying to cut costs, and enormous spending on busing is one of the first targets. They're buying every kid a pass on the local city bus system. My daughter rides the city bus, the notorious #5 route, both ways every day and then walks the 8 blocks between the nearest bus stop and the school. With the school's full knowledge, consent, and participation. The bus pass is no good between midnight and 6:00 AM, I believe, but it's meant to be used to and from school, including after-school activities, etc.
So this is the "Nanny State" in the "People's Republic of Minneapolis." They want kids walking, riding their bikes, using mass transit. They sponsor it, for crying out loud.
My wife's uncle works in the County Child Protection Office. He works on real cases, of horrific abuse and dysfunction. He wouldn't even take a call about kids walking home from school.
Where the hell are these crazy people? Maryland, obviously. I've read some crazy incidents in Texas. But in a place everyone calls a Socialist Hell-Hole (Minneapolis), something like this is extremely unlikely to happen.
if you don't know the diff between Minn and Maryland ... just spend some time in Maryland.
Clearly I don't know. Care to elaborate?
I'll let Marylanders provide details of their experience,. But, we here in Virginia call MD "The Peoples Democratic Republic of MD", usually with an eye roll.
If it were 1989, he would have known the route via where the bus went on his ride, and reverse engineered it one Saturday going there and back on his bike with his friends. He would have no helmet, no lights, no phone, an old bike, but the backpack with soda and food would still be there.
(Takes can of pop and food from fridge. Mom: Where you going? Kid: Going for a ride on my bike with Billy. Mom: Be back by supper. Kid: Ok.)
*sigh*
I only wish we as a nation still had the guts, tenacity and sense of accountability and self-reliance the American WWII generation had. They were true heroes in every sense of the word.
"......guts, tenacity and sense of accountability and self-reliance...."
Indeed.
How are you supposed to have children and supervise them at all times till they are 21?
Your race will be decimated by others who raise 5 kids without any problems and care little when one of them die because she is not careful or healthy.
Also, schools in the USA are full of bullies and more dangerous than streets.
The US schools I'm familiar with are just fine and much safer than the streets. And in most places, the streets are pretty safe too. We have a lot of guns but if you're not in the drugs trade or an abusive domestic relationship almost nobody actually gets shot. Media portrayals are wildly overblown, to push a variety of agendas.
In the 60's they didn't close the school every time it got really cold. A foot of snow was nothing, the bus driver would put the tire chains on and come clanking down the road, about 15 minutes late if there was a blizzard. I walked maybe 175 yards to the bus stop, there were only 10 stops in the village (can't call it a town). That was one of the socializin times of the day.
Kids that lived within a mile of school just walked. Some rode bicycles. No bus for them, no prob.
Now it's all, "walking outside oh dear god no bbeeeebebb porr little babies!"
Kids have got to be allowed to venture forth into the world they must find their way through and place in, without all the nattering and worrying. It is certainly not police business. The officer could ask, "how's it going, kids?" to give them an opportunity to speak up (if they were being abducted, for instance). If the kids are ok, leave them the hell alone.
There was literally one-tenth of an inch of snow on the ground in Northern Virginia this Tuesday and Fairfax County closed schools. It was so light I couldn't even call it a dusting of snow. Unreal.
They've been canceling it here due to coldness. I'm ashamed to say.
You must FEAR!
Only then can we PROTECT YOU!
I'm afraid you're right.
Makes one wonder how a species this stupid made it so long. From taking care of your chillldddren from birth to death to eliminating pigs, pork and sausage in text books, to forced cancer treatment of a 17 yo who didn't want to do their drugs and radiation to countless other examples.
And then,,, we congratulate them for joining the military, give them a gun and send them somewhere to get killed... for our freedom and liberty.
huh?
To your Lords and Masters you are an object, not a person.
But, like animals in nature, the objects are not aware of that fact.
Woah, woah, woah, what are you talking about here...
Huh?
You might have missed this then, - http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-15/peak-stupidity-oup-bans-use-words-pig-and-sausage-avoid-offending-muslims-and-jews
"Nowadays everyone's so very sensitive" - so we have the policy of restricting "allowed vocabulary" so as not to upset these very sensitive groups of individuals.
It was a friggin' hoax, man! I wish Kreiger would post a prominent retraction.
Coming soon; apps to put on your kids phones, to warn when the police are nearby.
13 year old suspended from school in NJ for twirling pen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=488vzngIXac
Astounding. Exactly 100 years ago, a 10 and 6 year old rode a motorcycle by themselves from Oklahoma to Manhattan. How did the nation respond? By cheering them on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Abernathy_and_Temple_Abernathy
They rode on horseback when they were 10 and 6 but I'd say it could be more dangerous than the bike.
About that, I still bear a little scar on my forehead... 'bout old stories of (un)safety. I was 5 or 6. Old times ^^. Today the police would shoot the horse, and also most probably anybody that resists to THEIR FUCKING AUTHORITY.
FUCK. THE. POLICE. PREDATORS.
At this point in time having children should be seen as child abuse.
Mrs. Atomizers sister lives in Montgomery County, Maryland and her other sister lives in Washington DC. Just drive 5 miles under posted speed limit and keep your headlights on. Don’t stop to spend money, just get thru Maryland to your final destination. These Maryland fucker’s are Detroit broke. Ohio was always bad, Maryland is worst. Washington, DC.. just drive in the left lane and pretend you live in the UK. It’s that fucked up. That’s how Ted Kennedy managed to get to the liquor store before it closed.
This is true. On the WDC Capital Beltway, massive 8-12 lane uber-state freeway, when people come racing down the hill on the Virginia side from the GW Parkway towards the river, the American Legion bridge and Carderock Exit 41, they all slam on the brakes and traffic drops -15mph because EVERYONE KNOWS that Md. Troopers ticket with impunity.
This was common knowledge in 1975 - so it is nothing new.
It's why traffic always bottlenecks as you approach the 270.
Maryland is such a shit State with shit people descended from Puritan assholes.
We enjoy our Autobahn in South Carolina. 5-10 cars traveling together to Myrtle Beach or Hilton Head (it’s Hells Bells). Once you arrive in town, drive safely. Winks.
Incorrect, Silver. Maryland was, originally, the only colony/state in the English Americas where it was lawful to practice the Catholic Faith and, as such, used to be a Catholic state. Now it is as faithless and materialistic as any other.
Permanent settlements of the Puritans were further north where being Catholic could get you killed.
Wow. This is despicable. I am 44, I agree that this certainly isn't the country I grew up in :/(
Very true. Reminds me of the movie/song.
David Bowie/Pat Metheny - This Is Not America
I'm not 80, but I am 60. I used to ride my bike starting at eight years old and ride out to the Missouri River with friends, which was 10 miles away. I never gave it a thought.
As for parental awareness, " I simply said, "Mom, we're going to ride bikes." that was it. I just assumed that she understood it meant as far as the Missouri River.
From 8 to 14, my life was an adventure. We lived in a tiny house, but I was outside 90% of the time, so it didn't matter.
As far as walking to school, everybody walked to school and if you were a mile away so be it.
Funny how government concern for children criminalizes parents in the US, while US Foreign policy murders tens of thousands of children worldwide and has done so for the last 70 years.
The answer is:
Stop building schools, buy a few extra buses, put teachers on the busses and just ride around all day learning. Then sell the schools and watch the property taxes collapse.
I was a latch-key kid.
I walked to school alone beginning at the beginning - kindergarten. Barely five years old.
A few years ago I went visiting and was curious if I could still navigate the route...this time by car.
I was shocked to discover it was 3 miles.
These jackasses in Maryland need to moderate the number and type of offenses they feel worthy of sticking guns in faces, and breaking up families. They have faces and families themselves. And they are not alone in their gun ownership.
The blowback for all this authoritarianism, when it comes, will be EPIC.
Nobody tried to jump you?
I did that, had to run from an old white perve when I was about 10. Later as a teen hitching, I caught a ride with a young arab guy who drove me into the country. When in the middle of nowhere he put his hands on me, I pulled a k*. He didn't. Later as a buff young man I caught a ride and a drunk eastern european propositioned me: "I just want to blow you.". I got out.
Its true. Maybe you down voted that because you know its true. Or maybe you can't face me, so you did that.
Eep. Misplaced comment. please ignore.
I love all of the commenters other stories. Here's mine:
1963, it was a busy small town with a large university. I was 5 years old and had to walk a mile everyday by myself after kindergarten to the babysitters. I had to cross 3 busy streets, one was four lanes. After a certain time of day I would then have to walk from the babysitters a mile and a half in the opposite direction to get back home before it got dark. Everyday.
Sometimes, on the way, I would stop and say hello to my barber in the barbershop in the strip center, and if I had a dime I'd take a spin on the mechanical pony in front of the grocery next door. A few times, on the way to the babysitter's, I would play dead by the side of the road. When people stopped their cars to help I'd get up and laugh. They would not be very amused (horrified, more like) so I decided I'd better stop that particular activity before my mom found out. But I always stayed on the direct roads coming and going, never wandered down other streets, and came to know many along the way that would help if I ever had any trouble.
5 hours a day after kindergarten that became my little world, I was the king, and I learned how to own it.
In 1963 there weren't 100 million+ idiots and crazies looking for unsupervised children to Spartan to death.
War zone. What the royals did to Germany is happening to us. Now. Same same, apparently it takes 4 generations to forget.
Their taunts are everywhere. Since I was 10.
I grew up in Montgomery County. In 1975, two sisters aged 11 and 9 disappeared while walking home from Wheaton Plaza which is not far from the Meitivs. They have not been seen since. Interest in the (Lyons sisters) disappearance has been revived recently after police named a suspect (in jail in Delaware for other crimes). MC detectives have been making promises to solve the case while conducting fruitless (so far) searches for the sisters' remains. I suspect that the busybody who reported the Meitivs has been watching too many of their press conferences on the case. Or, given that this area is full of government 'workers', the busybody just naturally thought it was his/her business.
So, by signing "a safety plan pledging he would not leave his children unsupervised", does that mean the parents had to escort them into the bathroom and stay in their room all night as they slept? I wouldn't sign anything unless they showed me a law stating it was illegal to let me kids walk to school without adult supervision!
I am 54, from Montgomery County, Md and this is not the country I grew up in.
The Lyons sisters incident scared parents, but kids still played outside. Ít was on regional TV news for years, but the world did not stop. We still went outside and walked in the woods until dinner. There were no cell phones to call us back - we just were told to be back by dinner and we were.
I don't care any longer - I live outside of North America now.
I would wish you all good luck, those of you still there - but I don't think it will matter.
Your country, the USA, is crashing and burning and may have already hit the ground on impact.
It's done, gone, finished.
Maybe those of you with kids will force a violent revolution upon society, but I don't count on it.
The rest of the world is, surprisingly, much saner than the USA and much like the USA in 1940. Kids play outside, walk everywhere, ride bikes to school, you can buy a beer have the clerk pop the top and drink it as you leave the store and walk down the street.
I think this concept is called ''Freedom'', but it's been so long that...
If highly skilled people like those don't immediately move out of the USSA, they are completely out of their mind insane.
Of course, being they work for the same predators who pay the cops, teachers and child destroyers departments, they'll probably just shrug and decide their paychecks are more important than their kids, their lives, their freedom and their futures.
-----
As I've said before here in ZH messages, I got hooked on astronomy at age 4, and started spending nights outside with my telescope... ALL NIGHT LONG, in the dark. By the time I was 8 years old, I was walking about five miles through a pitch-dark forest to a nearby telescope (better than mine) that I was allowed to operate. Typically I'd return home at 2am to 4am, but sometimes just after dawn.
I admit that walk through the forest was not without some risk and danger. Way back then, bad dogs were a risk, and I did see a wolf or mountain lion now and then. But I carried a nice long sword, two flashlights, and now and then a few small explosives called cherry bombs (not very dangerous, but loud).
I can't imagine what the busy-bodies would do today if some 8~13 year old kid did what I did? Somewhere around age 13 I got a nice bicycle, which made the trip back and forth a lot easier. Though honestly, I felt safer in any "encounter" when on my feet than on the bike, because one cannot handle a weapon (sword) while riding a bike.
To say I was an "uncontrollable kid" is a massive understatement. I had my interests, and I was going to pursue them. Period. No stopping me, that's for sure. BUT... I was completely aware I was taking risks, I absolutely didn't feel cocky about my abilities, and certainly did tweak my behavior when I could see the potential risk probabilities were approaching "not worth it".
Walk a mile home? Are these people kidding me? If I was these parents, I'd be outta dodge so fast the predators ears would spin. First thing I'd do, even if it was going to take me a couple weeks to physically move, would be to stick a big honking SOLD real-estate sign in the front lawn, remove the furniture from the front room (leaving the room utterly empty and barren), and leave the blinds wide open so the predators would assume we'd already gone.
Anyone willing to talk with those creeps makes a huge mistake! They are predators. Talking doesn't work... but might get you dead or your life destroyed. That's why I took a sword and other weapons with me when I walked through the forest after all! You don't negotiate with predators unless you're insane (like most people).
For those who think I took too much risk, I have this to say. You have an absolute right to decide where your risk-reward tolerance should be. I also understand that many people are NEVER capable of making risk-reward decisions very well, while others are already getting modestly capable before they enter first grade. I also admit that sometimes people are unlucky, and suffer bad consequences, while others are lucky and get by when they should have been lunch or road kill. Geez, before I moved out of the USSA about 3 years ago, the lack of awareness of so many drivers on the highways proved to me how out to lunch some people are (made much worse by cell-phone behaviors that I assume persist today).
These human predators are dangerous! Those of you who stay... do you realize these cretins can and do destroy lives by the millions in various ways - including steal kids and put them with complete whack-jobs?
People think how I live my life is dangerous. From my perspective, how people in the USSA are forced to live their lives is much more dangerous. MUCH more.
i sympathize with this father having been in a similar situation
ive never hated anyone so much as those people, although i am sure they do some good somewhere, i hope
THEY DO NO GOOD ANYWHERE
We will kill 3 Holstein steers coming up in February. Whole family comes together, men cutting,, women wrapping, some women cutting, some men more drinking than cutting. We buy the calves and split the feed costs and feeding is taken care of by son in law. Last winter he sold a quarter to a coworker because a family member had moved out of state and didnt need his quarter any longer. Somehow an FDA official found out and came snooping around the farm about "sellinng uninspected beef." Fuck all. If a family farm can get invaded because somehow some fucking fed worker found out about a quarter of beef being sold without USDA inspection in the middle of nowhere Ohio,, we are well and truly in a full blown police state already.
If said govt worker had heard that someone gave my grandson a boning knife to work with and he had procedded to cut off a good portion of his finger tip off ,, said grandson being 8 years old, my son in law would have been in prison I guess.
I will be 60. I live in obama ville suburbs where families ride bicycles on the sidewalks with full blown body armor and helmets. I had a buck I had shot during deer season swinging in the back yard from a tree and was skinning it. One of the body armor bicyle family moms said what I was doing was illegal. I told her what was illegal was the way she was raising her children. She rode off in a huff . In 1968 riots dad worked in the hood and they had men with rifles on the roof of his factory. I was 13 and would ride shotgun with mom to go pick him up from work as he worked the 2 to midnight shift. There was a 357 magnum in the glove box if the natives walked up on the car and mom was unable to move it dad told me to shoot if anyone tried to open the cars doors. Until the gun was empty.
We dont raise kids any longer. The government does in government schools with their immunizations and sexual perversions and socialistic brainwashing and God hating collectivism fully funded by our property taxes. When is it enough? I don't know. I am weary. I pray for my kids and grandkids. I fear for my country.
Even if I wouldn't call that "neglect" but just blissful obliviousness, can't say I blame the State on this one. There are pedophiles lurking in the vicinity of schools, and that's a fact. Another fact is that only responsible adults can protect the kids.
Better safe than sorry.
“The Pedestrian” (1951) by Ray Bradbury
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pedestrian